s hand and
went and began to put the shoe in the prints where Doc Lyon had run from
the window to the fence. "It fits," says Dick, and laughed, and I said
to pa, "What you got, Doc Lyon's shoe?" And pa said, kind of gruff and
absent minded, "Yes." "Well," says I, "You don't need any shoe to tell
it was Doc Lyon that chased me." Pa didn't answer me. He said, "Come
on, Dick," and they started for the buggy. Ma came runnin' to the door
and said, "Where you goin', Dick? The carpets must be cleaned and laid."
"I don't know," says Dick, "I'm in the hands of the law." "Back after
while," said pa, as he gave the horse a tap with the whip and drove off.

Ma stood in the door and said: "No order, no system, never anything
done. It's just too discouraging. Just as I get Dick and have him well
started at work, your pa comes and takes him off." Then she turned to us
and said, "Don't work any more on the flower bed. Come with me. I want
you boys to build a chicken coop. The old hen must be shut up to-night,
and you must hurry." Mitch smiled a little, but we went into the back
yard and got some lath and made the coop.

Well, after while Nigger Dick came back. They had driven out to Bender's
place and put the shoe in the footprints out there, and sure enough they
fit and pa had gone to the jail and quizzed Doc Lyon about the fire and
he had confessed and told everything. And that wasn't all. "Why," said
Nigger Dick, "that Doc Lyon is the devil himself. He killed Nancy
Allen--Yes, he did. He says so. And that ain't all. He killed your dog,
Mitch. And even that ain't all; all these cows that got cut so they
couldn't give milk, he cut 'em--yes sir, that devil cut 'em. And your pa
is goin' to have him hanged. And that ain't all. If he'd got up-stairs
last night, he'd a killed your ma. Yes, sir. He's the awfulest devil in
this county. And you see when he used to go to Sunday School and walk
the streets readin' the Bible, he was just playin' possum. He'd sold
himself to the devil and he was tryin' to hide it."

I said to Mitch, "Was Injun Joe ever in jail?" Mitch said: "Skeet, you
don't act like sense sometimes. You know dern well he was in jail. How
could he get into court if he wasn't in jail? Don't you remember when
Tom was testifyin' agin him that he broke loose and jumped through the
court house window and escaped, and nobody ever saw him again until Tom
found his body at the door of McDougal's cave?"

"Well," says I, "he might have